Tag Archives: Goals

Career hopping: The Ineffective Route to Success

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Without a vision, people perish.

I am about to be really judgy (in my world, all made up words are real, mmkay!), and I can do so because I was once (sometimes still) one of the regular culprits for this kind of behaviour: Indecisive.

If there was a list of offenders, I’d be the top 5:

  1. Irene
  2. Irene
  3. Irene
  4. Irene
  5. Irene

You get the point…I am talking to myself as much as I am you.

I truly love when people want to do well in life, I want everyone to win, even people I consider dusty lol, however, it frustrates me to no end when people change their ideas, businesses and goals on a regular basis. Like I’m going to need you to stick to one thing for AT LEAST a year or *summink!

I find that when people change their plans often and quickly, at the root of it, is a lack of vision, clarity or passion.

If it doesn’t work in the first instance, the most common action that I see some people take is to throw it all away, which is easily done when you are not convicted of your why or have a good understanding of how things work.

We build up great expectations about how things should be and feel like and once that doesn’t match our ideals then it must not be working or right for us. Abandoning your goals for those reasons can in many cases limit your ability to see the opportunity right in front of you.

The opportunity for growth is always present but if you’re hung up on what it is supposed to look like and believe that progress should just smack you right in the face, then you my friend will be gravely disappointed.

You see other people thriving in their careers and it appears to you like it happened overnight and that simply is not the case. Even if there are some people that ‘fall’ into a career and you consider them successful, there is a lot of work that goes into maintaining it, a lot.

What I really want to stress is that you cannot continue to flit about from one career to another, one business to another, one partner to another and expect to be successful, in fact it may be the very reason you are not. You have to focus your energy on one thing first, not one hundred things at once. Work on the opportunity that you have in your hand and stop looking at someone else’s grass believing it is greener. Yours could be just as green if you refrain from being a scatter brain (cheeky, I know) and channel your efforts into making the thing you want a success.

You need to be consistent, patient and focused on the outcome, not on how the outcome comes about or how long it’s taking, just scrap the ‘hows’ altogether. Zone in on your why and it’ll keep you going.

Now granted you may very well do that and it doesn’t work out, that’s completely fine, all hell does not have to break loose! What you can do in that situation is to take the learning experience and apply it in another area of your life.

There will be times that the thing you want doesn’t want you right now and to combat that, you must look at what is working, and ride it until the wheels fall off. Another opportunity with time, will present itself.

JF

Jamie Foxx is a perfect example of this. His first passion was music, but at the start of his career music didn’t want him, comedy and acting did. He worked that circuit for a few years before he released his second album which did considerably better than his first. By this point he was well recognised and respected in the entertainment business. It was much easier for people to be more receptive to his music-He wins! (Let’s gloss over his ‘15 National Anthem performance *side eye* thanks).

MA

Mahershala Ali has been acting for 16 years and my very first exposure to him was only last year in the Netflix series Luke Cage and now he’s everywhere!-And the first Muslim to win an Oscar 🙂

Nothing worth having will be easy. It will have twists and turns, ups and downs, highs and lows, it is part and parcel of living.

Work on your craft and if the craft isn’t working, work on something that is working. You can quote me on this, it will happen for you, eventually.

Xo

P.s *Summink South East London colloquialism for Something.

A Dry Spell

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I bought these flowers last week and a day or two after getting them, I started to think ‘erm, are they broken?’ (I’m impatient remember and currently in rehab).

None of them were opening up, but I left them anyway. Slowly, one by one they began to bloom.

It reminded me that there is a process to everything and how crucial it is to be patient, lest (I feel so fancy using ‘lest’) you miss your time to shine.

Do not prematurely abandon your ship, in hopes of ‘making’ it on someone else’s or resorting to ‘it just isn’t for me’ quips. Without you, it will not reach its destination and neither will you. If you believe in it, deep down in your marrow, then continue to nurture it, no matter what anyone has to say.

Give it time, let your intuition guide you, and exercise patience- a lot of it.

Xo

P.s Patience is quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence.

 

Hey, Listen Up!

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Hi Guys,

My real name is Irene and erm I have a tendency to saunter off when life gets manic but I’m working on it and I hope you can stick with me.

Pretty please…?

Thank you!

Xoxo

Okay, we’ve established that I’m guilty of going away and my excuse is I have been traveling, I visited Paris ooh la la. I don’t mean to sound like I am full of excuses because I am not. Well, not really, they are more like reasons, yes reasons, reasons sound better.

Anyway, I hope you have been doing fabulously! Let’s talk.

I was saying to someone yesterday, that it is so much easier to believe in someone else’s hype than your own. Why is that? :s
Take me for example, I personally believe everyone can fly if they want to, but to fill out an application form for myself sometimes is like Mount Kilimanjaro -_- .Not because I cannot do it, but if truth be told because I am not sure I’ll get it and dealing with rejection is a mother******.  The kicker is how am I supposed to get it, if I do not do the work that is required? However, ask me to jump off a ledge and I’d sooner do that than apply for a role. It is a strange conundrum I know but we’re going to mend it!

I can talk your ear off about affirmations, positivity, and all that stuff but, something has to change and the catalyst for that is action.

Let’s be about it, I am all about making leaps and bounds this year and shaking off those gremlins that have been gnawing at my/our brain ( gross I know) and preventing us from living the life we have always wanted to.  I am therefore challenging you to a duel with me, not really a duel, but to intentionally do the things that scare you shitless. I mean that thing that merely thinking about it, gives you the shits. Don’t front, we have all experienced that intense nervousness. That nervousness which you experience may be an indication of something that you really, really, really need to do.

How else are you going to make your dreams a reality, if you don’t switch up your regular, mundane, dry chapped lipped routine?  You must inject some life, some oomph, some je ne sais quoi into it!

Stop playing small and cowering away, step outside your comfort zone.

Oh and because I am not fear’s b*tch (lol I am on one today), I am sending part of my manuscript to two publishers this week, whoa!

You gon’ learn ta day!

XO

P.s Irene has been abducted and the above post was written by a clone named Irina. We do apologise if this post caused offence, sike!

Pain now, Gain later

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What’s stopping you? Is it fear? Is it the work? Is it the lack of discipline?

For me, it is the pain of doing the work. The difficulty or should I say, the idea I have built in my mind of how difficult something is or how long it will take, is one of my stumbling blocks. I’m sure you have gathered by now that patience is not one of my strong suits. The irony is once I’ve done it, I say to myself, ‘Is that it? What was the big deal?!’.

You have to think of it this way, do the work now so that you can enjoy later. I love studying people (my favourite pastime) and when I looked at a lot of successful people, many of them were still reaping from what they sowed years and years and years ago. They are harvesting from the work, graft, grind, that they also found difficult to do at the time. Wouldn’t it be great to have something that continues to bear fruit in your life, years after it’s been done?

Let’s take a singer-songwriter for example. They wrote and performed a song, 10 years ago. When that song gets used in an advert, they get paid and recognition from it. When it’s used in a film, they get paid and recognition from it. Someone does a cover, they get paid and recognition from it.  This is all from one song that they created, in a room, spent hours recording, fine tuning, staying up late, perfecting the performance of it, creating a video for it, doing interviews to promote it,  and all the other host of things that come with being an artist. These are some of the pains, which later became profitable.

It could be anything in your life, getting a new job, reenergizing a relationship, clearing your debts, making an investment, learning a new trade, weight loss, producing content for YouTube, writing a book, a social enterprise, raising a family, anything worth having does not comes easy or overnight. Without doing the work, none of these things will materialize. It’s the natural order of life, sow first, reap second.

Like my mentor says ‘Do what others won’t, to get what others don’t’.

Xo

P.s I am doing the work too, albeit begrudgingly grrr.

Nobody is Coming to Save You.

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We’re a few days into the New Year, how is it going for you? I really hope it’s been amazing so far.

As for me, it was going great until all grades of shit hit the fan.Think of fresh baby poo flung onto the ceiling, it’s disgusting isn’t it?! That’s the kick life has just given me.

*Big fat, humongous sigh* Can I live?! Universe please cut me some slack at least for 12 months (and or the rest of my life), pleaserrrhh?! Do I have to get on my knees and beg? I’ll do it I promise you I will.

I wish I had a Clark Kent, so he could transport me anywhere I needed to be, most especially in times of conflict, or an Iron Man because he’s innovative, funny and loaded, or a batman, well actually, maybe not batman, he’s fallen off but you get my drift.

The reality is there are no superheroes hanging around, no one is coming to save you. Be your own hero and help yourself in any way you possibly can. That’s not to say there will not be some amazing people to assist you along the way, but before that happens you would have had to have (*I hate that I used had/have 3 times in a row, ugh!) made significant progress on your own. You must exhaust all opportunities and options available to you, you have to be proactive!

Definition of proactive: Creating or controlling a situation rather than just responding to it after it has happened.

The above definition sums up perfectly what we need to be doing regularly. I happen to find myself in the latter part, which is always a pain to rectify.

Where you end up in the next few months is largely down to you and the actions that you repeatedly take. Don’t fancy being in the same position this time next year? Change.

Decide that no matter what, you are going to accomplish your goals and conquer your problems. You can do it, you just have to keep trying constantly until there’s a crack that you can eventually bust wide open.

Take any set back as a great opportunity for a better come up. Don’t even sweat it.

Xo

P.s I promise in my next post I’m going to be a huge ball of positive energy, even if it is that I’m faking it. I think I owe it to you guys to give you some oomph, some va va voom, some voulez-vous coucher avec moi, too much? Okay bye.

*I was really struggling to restructure that sentence, so erm yeah, sorry not sorry. Wait, could you have written that differently? Help me out here.

Broken Dreams: The dreaded 30’s

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Do I have any 80’s babies that are anxious about turning 30? Please say I!

30 is the new 20 right? Rightttt?? I need reaffirmation here ugh.

Whenever I think about not achieving certain aspirations, I start to panic and have mini drama episodes. I know I know, melodramatic, but it’s just how I feel.

I set myself a goal when I was 22, that by the time I turn 30 I would have­­____________ fill in the blank. Well 30 is looming over my head like a dark grey cloud, and by the end of next year I would have reached that mark. So yes, I am freaking out, majorly, just picture me running around in circles frantically in an empty room, and then running towards a glass panel door thinking it was open and knocking myself out, type of freaking out. Told you, me-lo-dra-matic. It has been at the forefront of my mind ever since I birthed it, haunting me like a scorned dead woman. Me-lo-dr…

When I set this goal I was so convicted of it, however as time draws near, I don’t feel any closer to achieving it. You could say that I am placing unnecessary pressure on myself, true, yet I refuse to relent. I believe in it, I don’t know how it is going to happen, I have no real physical indication yet, no connections, no expertise, but I still choose to be committed to the vision.

As a child, whatever I thought of would happen exactly how I would imagine it, was this the same for you? What I wanted, I got, and I don’t mean it in a ‘I’m spoilt’ kind of way, more so in ‘it just happened’ way. I honestly, truly, sincerely, stand behind, in front and beside this next statement- whatever you believe, will be real to you. If you believe it long enough, it will begin to materialize in some form or fashion in your life!

We were born creators, it is our inherent legacy to be builders, imagineers, architects, designers, authors, scientists, archeologists, astronomers, artists, producers, without purpose we cease to adequately function.

Sooooooo, this was a long message to say this, that broken dream, mend it.

YOU have the ability to create whatever you think of or want for yourself, remember as a wo/man thinketh so is s/he, so think of something wonderful, something magical, something breathtaking, something life changing, something unapologetically you and make it happen!

XO

Ps I need your good vibes send it to me

…

I’m serious

info@lipstickandblackcoffee.co.uk

The Green Eyed Monster

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If you say you have never been jealous, compared yourself or felt the simmering rage of the green-eyed monster, you’re a liar. Yup I said it, you’re a liar, that’s like saying you don’t fart (I don’t by the way, go on, ask my family or friends), news flash everyone does, except me of course.

I find it strange when people act like they have never felt the pang of jealousy before, it’s weird. Most people feign denial because they’re too ashamed to admit that they feel some type of way. I personally think it’s as normal as any other “acceptable” emotion. Just admit it, you have felt it before! It doesn’t make you a bad person, it simply means you’re human like the rest of us.

What I irrefutably do not agree with however, is acting out based on those misplaced feelings, ever. It is not cute at all.

I have encountered friends in the past, who because of their own built up image of me, secretly resented me for what they thought I had ha! .They acted out in all manners, spiteful, vindictive, tried to ostracize me, you name it, they did it.

How did I react towards their behaviour? I didn’t. Partially because I don’t believe in acting a fool, but mainly as it is not in my nature to behave in that way, it just doesn’t produce good karma. What I do have, is this other quality that works fabulously for me, its called ignoring the hell out of them. After a long period of their own personal soul searching (roll my eyes) I have received apologies, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Still saying you’ve never been covetous? Okay lets agree that at the very least, you have looked at another’s persons blessing and been happy for them, and then suddenly felt the huge gaping void that you are yet to experience such joy. I’m going to be honest I might not fart but I definitely have felt all the emotions of the above one hundred times over.

Thankfully, I am wise enough to know that the person or thing of focus is NOT the problem, I am and that’s where extra work has to be put in. Not on sabotaging the next person or spreading fallacious lies or defaming their character or wishing them ill, me, I am the work in progress.

In my case, having been the only child for a while and being born into a Nigerian family, it’s inherent that comparisons will be made between you and other people -Facts only. I guess they do it as a means of attempting to incite motivation to do and be better, but it irrevocably has the opposite effect. You instead clothed yourself with an inferiority cloak that if you’re not mindful of, will rule your life.

From childhood into adulthood, I have consistently compared myself to others and not in a ‘I think I’m better than everybody’ way but more so in a ‘Why can’t I do better? What’s wrong with me? Why isn’t it happening for me in the way that I want it to?’ And so on.

The work in progress looks like this for me:

Constantly reaffirming to myself that what is for me is for me, continuing to focus on me and all the great things I have going on, to increase the efforts I make towards my visions, to believe that it will happen, and that it’s all about timing, it’s not a matter of if, its when.

 

Enjoy the process of creating, one day you’ll miss it, one day you’ll look back and laugh, one day you’ll see that you were right to keep on going, one day it’ll all make sense. Piece by piece, the jigsaw puzzle will come together and you’ll be thankful for all the life lessons and training you received.

Tips for getting rid of the gremlin on your shoulder

Step 1

Take inventory of all your achievements, blessings, and things you are grateful for, both big and small. Recall that once upon a time, the things you have now were once an aspiration.

Step 2

Believe in your own hype. It’s okay to toot your own horn, beep beep!

Step 3

Keep your eye on the prize. Have your goals and visions in plain sight. Whether it is in writing or through pictures, make sure you’re keeping the dream alive religiously.

Step 4

Do something for yourself everyday. Sounds a bit narcissistic but its necessary. It’s absolutely important to invest in your health and well-being. It could be reading a book, going for a walk, watching your favourite show, seeing a family member, whatever it is, make sure it is good for you.

Step 5

Repeat step 1-4 over and over and over again.

Hope this has been helpful.

XO

P.s I  can’t be the only one that loves the Bitmoji’s on Snapchat?

Woe is me

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Good Morning Beautiful People!

If you’re in London, please do your best to enjoy this weather because we all know how fleeting it is!

I was watching ‘The Good Wife’ and Alicia said and I paraphrase ‘we don’t have a problem, we have an opportunity’.

‘I don’t have a problem, I have an opportunity’, say it a few times. It makes you feel differently doesn’t it? It gives you back the power over your situation. You can either look at it as you’re damned, or that this is an opportunity to transform and elevate your life.

When you tune in to bullsh*t, the tendency is you’ll continue to create more of that. Woe is me soon transitions into woe becomes me.

It’s about how you set your internal GPS, if you key in negativity, well that’s the direction you’ll head in until you decide otherwise. If you don’t like the direction, then you have to stop, and reroute the internal GPS. Fixate your mind on a new belief/perspective and let it shape and guide you.

Today’s a good a day as any, to refocus, re-strategise and go full steam ahead towards the life of your dreams. It’s not impossible it’s quite the opposite, it’s VERY possible, your goals and aspirations are just as real as you are, if only you would begin to act like it.

I have to stress how important it is to keep your eye on the prize, look towards the end goal, let thoughts and feelings of achieving that ambition engulf you.

To help you stay on target, use pictures, write things down everywhere, repeat affirmations, surround yourself with like-minded people who can hold you accountable, change your environment, go to the places now that you think you can only go to when you ‘make’ it, watch things that cultivate the spirit of what you want to embody, read books, generally saturate your life with what you want and not with what you don’t want.

As I say over and over again, everything we see around us was once a mere thought but someone persisted, believed in themselves and in their goal and made it happen.

You can too!

XO

‘One day’ is wishful thinking

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Sometimes saying a little says a lot.

The above picture were words said to me by my mother. It made me think of how true my mother’s proverb is.

One day is a hopeful wish and lacks any power, responsibility and commitment.We utter those words all the time, without any real intention to make whatever it is materialize.

If we think it, it can be achieved. The world we live in is full of things that were once a thought or an idea. We can travel from one part of the world to another in a day, once upon a time, this was a “ludicrous” notion.

Here’s the real on ‘one day’, one day is today. There is no time like the present, start planning, writing down the ideas, making that phone call, doing the research, joining the gym, registering for that course, looking at flight tickets, connecting with that friend, applying for that role, taking those pictures, opening that business account, registering your company, whatever it is, you have the power to make it happen, simply take the action towards it.

One day and one step at a time.

XO

Complaining gets you results!

06 Monday Jun 2016

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I have a confession to make. For the past three weeks I have been a champion complainer. Almost every single morning, I have bitched and moaned about this ‘thing’. What is the ‘thing’? Working, but more specifically the commute to work.

After not having a job for 5 months by choice, going back to work (also by choice, well more so necessity) has tested my entire existence. There were days where I woke up and thought, this is the day, this is the day, I am going to run into oncoming traffic and end it all.

Okay okay, that was a bit dramatic, but it would be dishonest to pretend that everything is all rosy when you bliming well know it’s not.

My first thought was I am being punished, this HAS to be the reason why all these ill-fated scenarios keep occurring. Alright, maybe punish is the wrong word, teaching me lesson.

The lesson being, do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, otherwise you’d end up doing what you don’t want to do-like me ggrrrr.

In a weird turn of events, it’s placed the fire back up my butt to get out there and do more to get to where I want to be, a catalyst even.

I write this to stress that as much as your life may not reflect what you want, it is up to YOU to transform things around. I can whinge until I am purple in the face, if I don’t adjust what I do, then that is where I will remain. I guess that is what pains me the most, because I know wherever I am in life, was and is to a large degree, my doing.

It boils down to this, if you don’t like something, change it, if you want something, go for it, if you believe in something, act like it.

I’ll never forget when I had written a long message to my virtual mentor about doing something I had been afraid to do and all she wrote back was just do it. I remember being incredibly irritated by the response yet it was fact. You just have to do it, change it, remove it, test it, try it, it’s all in the action baby! (Said in a strong NY accent, a British one would just sound weird).

XO